The telephone plays a very important role in our lives. According to its mode of usage, the telephone can be classified into two rough categories. One is the category of telephones that are used in an exclusive single-user mode, whereby the callee of incoming call is often the user of the telephone himself. The other is the category of telephones that are used in a shared multi-user mode, whereby the callee of incoming call is someone in the group of user sharing the telephone. One problem with a telephone of the shared multi-user mode lies in the fact that it can tell who is the callee from an incoming call, because most signal systems (e.g. H323 telephone system) adopt particular name spaces, which are related to the device used instead of human names.
FIGS. 1A-1C illustrate respective examples of telephone of shared multi-user mode. FIG. 1A illustrates an example of shared multi-user telephone installed in a small office. In the small office shown in FIG. 1A, for some reason (e.g. to save budget), is installed only one telephone 110, for example, shared by Anders, Harris and Bob. In such case, everyone in the small office will print the number of this telephone on his/her business card. Since the answerer (e.g. Anders) of a call may not be the callee (e.g. Harris), the answerer will always ask the caller whom is to be called. This is inconvenient and so annoying to the call's answerer that no one is willing to take up the call, thereby causing many unfavorable consequences. One such consequence is that the telephone will ring for a long time, affecting everyone working in the office, or even will never be taken up until hung up. However, such a call may be important business call, and no one taking it up until hung up may result in lost opportunities. As for the caller as business partner, he/she may be unsatisfied with someone else forwarding the call to the caller and/or the inconvenience caused by having to wait for a long time. Obviously, this will bring negative impact to the business image of the small office.
To such a problem, the conventional solution is to assign someone to taking up calls, who is responsible to answer all incoming calls. Although this solution can avoid the situation where business opportunities be lost because no one answers the phone, it sill cannot overcome the aforementioned problems due to manual answering. Besides, the solution will increase the cost of running a small office.
FIG. 1B illustrates an example of shared multi-user telephone installed in a conference room. In the conference room shown in FIG. 1B, is installed only one telephone 120, which can be used by every participant of the conference. FIG. 1B shows that Joe, Steve and Lisa participate in the conference. In some corporations, a PBX (Private Branch Exchange) system provides call-forwarding function. Staff members can use this function to forward his/her office call to the telephone in the conference room before the conference starts, so that he/she can receive the incoming call to his/her office telephone in a timely manner. In such a case, there also occurs the same problem as with the shared telephone in a small office.
To such a problem, the conventional solution is to show the caller's name. By displaying the caller's name on the telephone, someone near the telephone will know who the callee is for the call. The caller's name is the identifier of the callee's office telephone. However, this solution depends on the available functions provided by office PBX and telephone system. To see clearly the caller's name displayed on the telephone, the telephone is often placed near the conference participants, thereby resulting into noise.
FIG. 1C illustrates an example of shared multi-user telephone installed in a home. In the home shown in FIG. 1C, is installed one telephone 130, which is shared by family members (e.g. Joe, Mary and Mike). The answerer of a call always asks who it is. Obviously this will bring about inconvenience to the family members. For instance, my brother has an American friend, who sometimes calls my brother to chat. Sometimes when the American friend calls, my brother is far away from the telephone and my father takes up the phone. However, since my father does not understand the American's language, it takes a long time to understand whom the caller wants to talk to.
To such a problem, the conventional solution is to show the caller's name. By displaying the caller's name on the telephone, someone near the telephone will know who the callee is for the call, thereby choosing who is answering the call. However, when the caller places a call from nonfamiliar telephone number, the answerer has no way to tell who the callee is.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a novel telephone device of shared multi-user mode, capable of providing a virtual telephone for every user such that every answerer of a call will feel that the telephone is exclusively for him/her, with virtual telephones sharing a single physical IP address.